“Why?”
“Because your father is a control freak, and he doesn’t like leaving things to chance. If it can be done, he would’ve done it. I still want to kill Hugh.”
“I know. Christopher forgave Hugh because he believes that if he can’t forgive Hugh, he himself can’t be forgiven.” I added milk to the mixture, and then flour.
“So you forgave him for Christopher?” Curran lifted the pan to roll a piece of smoked fat all around it.
“No. I haven’t forgiven him anything, and if I do, it won’t be for Christopher. It will be for me. I don’t want to drag the weight around. But for now, I want to know why he is here. There has to be a reason and it’s not trade agreements for herb sales.”
“Do I have to forgive him?” he asked.
“No.”
“Oh good. Because I was worried there for a second.”
I rolled my eyes at him.
Someone knocked on the front door.
“It’s open!” I called. I’d left it unlocked and opened the ward, too. I knew Hugh was human. Regular wards wouldn’t stop him, and he’d broken my blood ward once, which took him out of commission for a few minutes. But Elara was another story. Something about her didn’t feel quite right.
Hugh opened the door and held it for his wife. She walked in and entered the kitchen. Another dress, this one a pale lavender. Her hair, braided and pinned on her head, was so light, it almost seemed to glow. There was something slightly regal about Elara. Something magic too, but she kept it hidden deep inside, and if I tried to pry, she’d feel it. What the heck was she?
Hugh leaned against the wall, big, dark, the happy-to-kill-you psychopath I remembered. I handed him a stack of plates. “Make yourself useful.”
He winked at me.
I swiped a knife off the island and threw it. It sprouted from the wall an inch from his nose. “You’ll need cutlery,” I told him. “Second drawer on your right.”
“Here, I’ll help.” Elara pulled the drawer open and began extracting forks and knives.
A few minutes later the four of us sat around the breakfast table, with a plate full of golden round pancakes and a platter of smoked meat between us, and fried eggs divvied up on our plates. We drank coffee. Elara drank tea.
We began eating.
“Anything you want to know?” Hugh asked.
“How good are Neig’s human fighters?” Curran asked.
Hugh grimaced. “Good. There is a handful of Iron Dogs who can take them one-on-one, but we’ve had the most success with a small combat team approach.”
“You jump them three or four at a time?” Curran asked.
“Yep. The armor is a problem. It’s a strong alloy, and we’ve had a devil of a time cutting them out of it.”
“Is it crushable?”
“You or a werebear, maybe,” Hugh said. “For a human, it takes a mace. Unfortunately, they’re lively in that armor.”
“What about the yeddimur?” Curran asked.
“The beasts?” Elara asked. “Each soldier can control up to five. They’re not slaves, they are doglike. Very cruel. They feed on what they kill.”
“Are they contagious?” Curran asked.
She frowned. “Not that we’ve noticed, and we’ve had very close contact.”
A whisper of magic escaped her and fluttered past me, ghostly and cold. I cut a small piece of my egg and speared it with a fork. She was something, all right.
“What about this army?” Curran asked. “Any idea how large it is?”
Hugh shook his head. “We fought his vanguard, maybe three hundred men and about a thousand beasts. I can tell you that they went through Nez’s forces like a knife through butter.”
Wait, what?
“Landon Nez?” Curran asked. “The Legatus of the Golden Legion? How did they get involved?”
“They were besieging us at the time,” Elara said.
“Did Nez die?” my husband asked.
“No,” Hugh said, and his face told me exactly how happy he was about it. “But the Legion had to withdraw.”
“We need to figure out what Neig’s got.” Curran drummed his fingers on the table.
“Unless he invites one of us over, I don’t see how that would be possible,” Hugh said. “We do know a few things. His people can’t be subverted. I have my doubts that they are even people anymore. He attacks small settlements where he knows he will take minimal losses. Dogs hate him and everything that smells of him, which includes his soldiers and the yeddimur. The shapeshifters among my people report having the same urge to kill them as they do with loups.”
“There are shapeshifters among your people?” Curran asked.
“I discriminate on the basis of ability, not origin. You know that, Lennart.”
“Really?” Curran frowned. “You might need to discriminate harder then, because I don’t remember them being that difficult to kill. Didn’t you kill one, honey?” He glanced at me. “A centurion, too. Was it hard?”
Elara smiled at me. “The pancakes are delicious.”
“Anytime you want a repeat of that rendezvous you and I had on the roof, you let me know,” Hugh said.
I set my mug on the table a little too hard, and it made a thud. The two men looked at me. “Honestly, Hugh, why the fuck are you here?”
“I told you,” he said. “I have a castle to protect. With a town attached to it. A thousand civilians: bakers, smiths, potion brewers. Kids. Elderly. We are not set up for a long-term siege. If Neig goes through you, he will swing toward us. He has a score to settle.”
Elara put down her fork. “My husband has trouble communicating his feelings, so I may have to translate for him. He feels guilt. He remembers everything he has done, the people he killed, and the lives he ruined. It gnaws at him and it’s ripping him apart. There are times he doesn’t sleep for several days. He works himself to exhaustion trying to protect us, and he blames himself for every death and injury. He left our castle and our people and came here, because you need him. You are in critical danger. He can’t change the past, but he can alter the future, and if you let him, he will do everything in his power to help. He isn’t trying to win your forgiveness. He is here to atone, because it’s the right thing to do. I’m here because I love him. This is very difficult for him and I didn’t want him to face it alone.”
The table fell quiet.
I looked at Hugh. He looked back at me. There was a sharp pain in his eyes. My father had done his damage, tossed him away like garbage, yet here he was, trying to right lifetimes of wrong, and somehow I was the key to it. I felt it. It was like a live wire connecting us.
“I’m sorry about Mishmar,” he said. “I’m sorry about the knights, the castle, all of it.”
Sitting here was excruciating. I wanted to fall through the floor.
Silence stretched.
If I slammed the door in his face now, I would be just like my father. Hugh was the closest thing to a brother I had. We were both raised by Voron under Roland’s shadow. We were both trained to kill and expected to obey without question. We both would’ve done anything for our “father’s” approval. We were both found wanting by Roland, each of us a disappointment. He had no use for us unless we served him.
If it weren’t for my mother’s sacrifice, I would be Hugh now, sitting here, waiting for a crumb of kindness from someone I’d hurt.
The silence was unbearable now.
“I have a comatose dragon in my basement,” I said. “He fought Neig and he might know something that can help us. We’ve been trying to bring him back to life, but nothing has worked. Could you please take a look?”
Hugh nodded. “I can.”
“Thank you.” I got up. “I’ll show you where he is.”
* * *
? ? ?
HUGH PONDERED YU Fong. Adora watched him from her chair as if he were a rabid dog.
“I’ll have to cut him open,” Hugh said. “There is something lodged inside him.”
“Can you keep him alive?” I asked.
“Yes,” Hugh said.
“You said the other doctor said it couldn’t be done,” Adora said.
“The other doctor isn’t Hugh,” Elara told her. “If my husband says he can heal him, he means it.”